Texas is Beautiful in Springtime

Look at all of these lovely little blooms!

For the past few weeks, Texas wildflowers have been springing up all over the place.  Along the roadsides, there is a sea of beautiful colors: pinks, yellows, blues, purples, and the ever-present green.  I love, love, love springtime!  I’m working on a new project inspired by these lovely flowers, so I created a color palette of the hues I found this morning.  Enjoy my flower finds, and use the palette to bring some of the Texas wildflowers into your home all year round!

Happy New Year, Everyone!

I ran across this list of daily “to-do” items and it makes a whole lot of sense.  Even though there’s only 10 actions, I have a feeling the challenge will be doing #11.  See what you think…

 

EACH DAY . . .

1. Learn something new.
2. Share it with someone else.
3. Do something nice for someone else.
4. Do something nice for yourself.
5. Think of at least one specific thing to be thankful for.
6. Do something to grow your business/advance your career.
7. Eat three healthy meals.
8. Do some form of exercise for at least 20 minutes.
9. Do something you enjoy.
10. Do a chore a day.
11. Make sure each of the above affirmations were met.

Vacationing in Michigan

Our lake from the dock

As most of you already know, I’m a born and bred Texan.  I’ve lived in the Lone Star State my entire life, and, though I’ve traveled, I’ve never been up through the mid-west.  So this summer, my two best friends from college and I decided to take advantage of a family lake house in Traverse City, MI–we met up in Dallas, packed up the mommy-van, and hit the road!

It’s kind of embarrassing to admit that I’d never been to Oklahoma, but it’s true.  We crossed through Oklahoma, (which really wasn’t all that exciting), then on to Missouri, making our way to Rolla before our booties just couldn’t take sitting in the car anymore.  We watched a very cool lightning storm from the hotel window before we zonked out.  I really liked Missouri–I had no idea it’s so beautiful there!  Almost like the Smoky Mountains.

Onwards the next morning to St. Louis, where we didn’t stop to see the arch, but snapped off a few pix as we drove by and crossed the Mississippi, headed for Illinois.  Very cool rolling land full of crops in a multitude of colors, dotted with huge wind-farms!  As we neared Chicago, I got to check off one of the things on my bucket list: eat at White Castle.  (Okay–it wasn’t all that great.)  I need to add bigger things to my bucket list!

We zipped across the top part of Indiana, then arrived in Michigan.  Another five or so hours brought us “Up North,” to Traverse City.  When we left Texas, it was in the 90′s–Michigan was in the 60′s.  AWESOME!!   We’ve been here a few days now, and my morning ritual has become making myself a cup of coffee and heading to the dock with two pieces of bread to feed the fish.  On days we haven’t planned an excursion into town to explore the shops, grab a scoop of Moomer’s ice-cream, or seek out the best cherry pie, we’ve just lounged in the hammock or read a book, staying up late to talk into the night, then sleeping until our bodies want to wake up.  Again–AWESOME!  We’ve even made smores over the fire-pit (kinda stinky).

There’s wildlife all around us–very exciting for a city gal like me: fish, loons (which go crazy around 2:30 a.m.), chipmunks, deer, eagles, snakes named Larry, turtles–even a Baltimore Oriole who dominates the yard with his bright orange/yellow self.  There’s beautiful, huge flowers everywhere, with wild strawberries in the undergrowth.  I’m trying to capture it all, so you can look forward to some new prints available soon. Here’s a teaser, with the photo of the lake from our dock.

Anyway, that’s my life for the next week.  I hope y’all are likewise having a wonderful time wherever you are!  I don’t want to think about returning to the heat, so for now, stay cool and groovy!

My Mission (or Why I Blog)

It’s been a few months now since I started Groovy Gal Designs Online and this blog, so I think it’s about time that I formally define a purpose, a mission, for this blog.  One, in order to focus my own writing.  Two, so that you’ll understand why you come here.

I have to be quite honest and admit that I started GGDO as a way of having my very own online presence–a money-making affair where I could consolidate all of my online stores.  Frankly, I was running out of room on my business cards!  I needed one domain that I could call home, so GGDO was born.

Aside from showcasing my own diverse creations, I also wanted a way to highlight cool things that I’d find on my web adventures.  A cool purse; a new product; a green architectural design; a groovy font; a store filled with funky treasures; an oasis get-away location for rejuvenating and day-dreaming.  Those kinds of things.  They filled my Firefox bookmarks and my Stumble Upon “Likes”, but I felt this burning need to share them–to tell others about them.  Hence the second reason I opened up my own home on the web.

As I’ve worked to refine things around here over the past three months, I’ve discovered something very important in terms of exposure and selling: If no one knows you’re out there, then they can’t buy your stuff.  It’s as simple as that.  In creating the monthly Groovy Finds section, pulling mainly from Etsy and 1000 Markets artisans, it has quickly become clear that life is just not fair when it comes to search engines and finding the diamonds in the rough.  That’s why, when I’m unearthing gems for you, I have an unwritten, semi-subconscious rule that I’m not going to include sellers who’ve had thousands of sales in the Groovy Finds.  Those people don’t need more exposure, because buyers obviously already know that big-sellers have really cool things.  But so do smaller-shop artisans!  So do those who are just discovering the world of online vending and opening up shop!  Those are the people I’m looking to find and announce to the world.

To sum up what this rambling is all about, here, then, are the goals of Groovy Gal Designs Online:

1. to have an online presence and increase my own sales
2. to showcase unique, interesting, nostalgic-vintage, future-friendly, entrepreneurially-expedient things
3. to support and promote up-and-coming artisans

Connecting Groovy People with Groovy Stuff–that’s what it’s all about!

I survived the Cross Creek Ranch Arts Festival!

Groovy Gal at Cross Creek Ranch Arts Festival

So the alarm goes off at 4:45 a.m., because I need to leave by 6:30 a.m. to get to the location, across Houston (which is a very large, spread-out city!), by 8 a.m. to set up.  Last night, Mr. GroovyGal (bless his heart) helped me load everything into his van.  My little Crossfire only holds me…

As I’m driving cross country, lo and behold, there’s a brilliant RAINBOW in the western sky in front of me.  I took that as a good omen.  Silly me.  As I approached Cross Creek Ranch (basically a huge new subdivision out on the Texan plains–it used to be “out in the country”–now it’s just another suburb) the sprinkles started.  Oh no!  It’s supposed to be a pretty day!  And I saw a rainbow, which is supposed to be a good sign…  But no.  The sprinkles turn into a pretty steady rainfall that lasts for the next two hours.  You know–the “set-up” time.

SIGH.  Tents, product, signage, decorations.  A nightmare.  I finally manage to get the tent up, and I struggled to get three side panels onto it…I never could get them to zip together at the corners.  ANOTHER SIGH.  90 minutes later, I’m finally able to get my tent into a somewhat organized fashion, but the fishnets I’d bought to stretch across two sides are a goner.  On to plan B…  OH!  And due to the fact that I had a great location in the middle between two long stretches of tents–we’re in a parking lot–there’s a river running beneath my feet.  The water didn’t dry up until about noon.  Kind of hard to put large canvases on the ground in water…(never fear–nothing got wet, thank goodness!).  Anyway, it was definitely plan B time.

Cue the break in the clouds and blue sky and sunshine.  Finally!  Yea!!  Everyone’s SO happy, and it’s going to be a great day after all.  But then–yes!  You guessed it!  A crafter in a tent’s WORST nightmare: 14 mph relentless WIND!  AAUUGGHH!!!!!  So no opening the side panels, because everything would blow away.  As it was, I spent the day righting and picking up and repositioning things.  Every muscle in my body aches.  Got a nice little pink tint on my face, arms, and chest, too.  And got to work in semi-damp clothes all day.  Joy!

BUT–it really was a good festival!  Good crowds, cute kids with their parents, a few cool dogs, and lots of eager customers.  I met a ton of really nice people, and I got to spread the word about Groovy Gal.  I’m also going to feature some of my booth neighbor’s works in the Groovy Finds section, but that’ll have to wait for a day or two.

On the drive home, despite my diet (I’ve lost 20 lbs!), I decided that I had earned myself a yummy, filling dinner, so I stopped off at one of my old haunts, this fabulous Persian restaurant that has awesome chicken and beef shish-kabobs.  I order the chicken, with basmati rice and yogurt with garlic.  The owner remembered me and was happy to see me, even though it had been over a year since my last visit.  It’s nice to live in such a large city and still see familiar faces in favorite places.

So, overall–tired, full, and definitely needing a foot-massage.  Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, so there’s no pix of this fun-filled day…but it was a great day, and that’s all that counts!  I hope yours was wonderful, too!  UPDATE: I’ve added one of the “official” pictures from the day, taken by Mitch-the-Organizer’s crew.  See the entire slide show here.